A fine example of recombinant inspiration lifting the ordinary into the realm of the extraordinary.

No shortage these days of useful online resources for someone trying to learn an instrument. YouTube and Google Video are awash in instructional video goodies, there’s a wealth of pages that transcribe even obscure songs. My present attempt to learn “Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes” by Kevin Ayers off a tab-sheet is hampered by my inability to perform basic manuevers on the fretboard, and to feel between lines/dots of the chord-changes. Trying to teach myself guitar this past year has provided me with boundless humility and some insight into my own processes of learning, the pros and cons of mechanisms for informal self-instruction. Too bad that I still suck.

What I find myself wanting is some means of online social interaction that might begin to replicate the vastly superior learning experience of sitting down with a patient, friendly musician willing to share a few licks and tips. Maybe I should just get out more.

I did a Berklee Music course in arranging whilst in a location that separated me from like-minded musicians and it was well worth it. They run some pretty good guitar programmes.

There are online music collaboration sites, like digital musician, but these are geared towards recording musicians. Forum-based sites like harmony-central have lesson lounges, but to be honest the information there is as often unhelpful as it is helpful.

I’m intrigued by the concept of online collaboration in music as well as the arts. There is a fab website I came across terminus1525.ca whose mandate is to get young artists to collaborate with others in Canada & abroad. This is done with forums and creation of an online “virtual studio”. I’m very interested in seeing the end product of these collaborations.

The “network” that has formed around a learning goal there isn’t so much about helping each other achieve the goal — it seems to be more focused on helping people decide whether to pursue it in the first place, and how to get started. Once they’ve adopted or rejected the goal, very few return to participate in any meaningful way. It’s like the assumption is that once you’ve started, the learning will take place in isolation (or at least elsewhere). Interesting…